Sen. John Kennedy calling for 'stop and frisk' in New Orleans, FOX 8 reports

In an interview with FOX 8 News today, Sen. John Neely Kennedy said Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) should implement a "stop and frisk" policy in order to combat crime in the city.

"It worked in New York," he said. "It's the only way I know left to get the guns and thugs and dopes off the street. We got young people killing young people and now other citizens, and the reason is they got these guns, and until you get the guns you're not going to stop it. The criticism of it is it's racial profiling. No, not when it's done correctly. When it's done correctly, race has nothing to do with it."

Though "stop-and-frisk" is controversial, it's not unconstitutional, though in 2013 a federal
judge ruled part of New York's implementation of the practice to be unconstitutional. An analysis of the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy, conducted by the New York American Civil Liberties Union, found "innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 5 million times since 2002, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent." The department has gradually stepped down the practice since 2011.

"I'm sure the Mayor has an opinion on climate change, he probably has an opinion on world hunger, world peace, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - but he's the Mayor of New Orleans and he's got 11 months left, and he needs to concentrate on one thing and one thing only and that's crime," said Kennedy.